Primary Election Sadness

[bedlamhouse]

I am nearly heartbroken over Sen Richard Lugar's Senate seat loss in the Indiana Republican primary yesterday. With that vote, the US has lost one of the last public servants who put what he thought was the good of the nation above partisan squabbles and sound bite platitudes. At every level of government in which he served he did so with integrity and honor. It isn't too much to say that we would be facing a far different world without his efforts in the foreign policy realm - in particular the removal of tons of nuclear weapons material from the potential terrorist market through his work with Sen. Sam Nunn.

One of my earliest political memories is being woken up by my parents when I was 8 to be told that Lugar had won the Indianapolis mayoral election. I have always looked to him as an example of the best that a moderate Republican could offer. His defeat is proof that such a thing is now a complete oxymoron, to be replaced with more of the "our best work as politicians is to cause failure so we can be elected and face an opposition which will work constantly for our own failure" school of governance.

Add that to the passage of Amendment 1 in North Carolina and it has been a particularly crappy day.

Comments

[starmalachite.livejournal.com]

Agreed on all counts. He was just about the only Republican left in Congress for whom I had any respect whatsoever.

[(Anonymous)]

I mourn with you. I voted in the Republican primary for only the second time since I have been old enough to vote, specifically so that I could vote for Lugar. For years, he has been the only Republican I voted for. It's official: The inmates are running the asylum.

[patoadam]

Yes.

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/08/moderate-republicans-fall-away-in-the-senate/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/25/robert-draper-anti-obama-campaign_n_1452899.html

[kestrels-nest.livejournal.com]

Sorry, Bill. The Anonymous comment was me. I didn't realize I wan't signed in.

[maiac.livejournal.com]

You can blame the same crowd for both events.

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

There's still a fair number of moderate Republicans these days. They're just all Democrats now. (I'm not snarking. There's a lot of centrist Dems these days who would have been right at home in the pre-lemming-fringe GOP.)

I thought of you when I read the news about Lugar. *comfort*

[samwinolj.livejournal.com]

He voted for DOMA and the Patriot Act. He can rot in hell as far as I'm concerned.

[bedlamhouse]

I never said my views aligned with his 100%, I think there's no politician of integrity for whom that could be said by more than particular individuals.

Regarding DOMA, I have been disappointed in that aspect of his voting and expressed the same.

Regarding the Patriot Act, there are not very many sitting members of Congress or the Senate who can say they DIDN'T vote for that piece of garbage.

One of my major political philosophy arguments over time has been whether you prefer a person of integrity with whom you disagree or a rat bastard with whom you agree. I tend toward the former, which has gotten me in hot water and long arguments considering the overwhelming desire on the part of the electorate for the latter.